ATLANTA — A Spelman College senior will represent her school and her family as a published children’s book author.
Rayven Bryant is the author of “Bring It On, Gran!” which was recently published by Scholastic. Channel 2 Action News tagged along as Bryant read her book for the first time to kindergarten students.
“It was my first time sitting them all down and explaining to them the author writes the word,” she said. “Seeing them enjoy it was... it was emotional for me because the storyline sits so close to my heart.”
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Gran in the story isn’t just any Gran. The character is Bryant’s grandmother who died in 2021. She helped take care of Bryant, who says her mom and grandma were a team.
“I learned like a lot of generational history and things through my grandmother, which I am also learning is really common for a lot of students,” she said.
The pictures in the book were inspired by pictures of Bryant and her family.
Scholastic reached out to Spelman and other HBCUs for contributions to their “Our Stories: Decodables” collection. The stories help teach kids to read and to see themselves in the pages.
“It’s really important that students are able to find people who wrote books that either look like them or write stories that they identify with or characters that look like them. So they can have more connection to the literature,” Bryant said.
The senior will graduate the spring and will continue in the publishing space with a social justice workbook.
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